Colossians 3 : 12 – 21 - Church of Scotland Geneva

1 Colossians 3 : 12 21 Luke 2 : 41 52 SermonWhen Jesus was 12 years old his parents took him to the Temple as usual for the Passover Festival. They took him every year and it seems every previous visit had passed off without incident, but this year was significant. Jesus was 12, the age when Jewish boys go through their bar-mitzvah ceremony, and officially become young men. They symbolically move from the carefree days of childhood to an age in which they have responsibility both to society, and for it seems that just going through that ceremony was not enough. This young boy, this young man, has more questions to ask before he is ready to get on with the responsibilities of adulthood.

2 That is not necessarily because he was an especially religious boy. It could simply be a sign that he is a normal boy. Having questions is a natural process that we all go though as part of growing up, as we try to make sense of the life that we are beginning to take responsibility here is a picture of Jesus that we can relate to; Jesus as a boy growing up like all the other children round about him, a teenage boy full of enthusiasm and ideas and questions. And when he had questions to ask and issues to search, he went to the Temple. Indeed it seems that his search was so intense that he stayed on even after the others had left which didn t exactly do much for his parents blood Jesus had questions, when he needed help and support, he found it in the Temple.

3 He found there, people who were willing to take time to listen to him, people who were willing to accept his questions and his doubts, and his ideas. He found people who regarded this 12 year old boy as being important enough to talk to in a serious way. I would like to think that a 12 year old in Geneva could find the same thing in our community. Indeed I would like to think that all of us could find that in our Church , because, believe it or not, it is not only 12 year olds who have questions and uncertainties and it is not only children who need help and so many stages on our journey through life we are going to find ourselves facing new situations, new challenges.

4 At many stages on our journey we are going to be forced to stop, and wonder if some of our assumptions are still as true as we had assumed them to be, and to question whether what we had been doing with our lives is what we should be doing with our lives say we will be forced to stop and wonder, but actually that is not true. It may be perfectly possible for us to keep going, to smother any doubts and block out any questions and force ourselves to keep taking the next step on the same path. Plenty of people do that, often because they fear that pausing is a sign of weakness, or that if they allow themselves to question things they had held dear they might not get answer they would want.

5 We can ignore the questions and the doubts which naturally arise and carry on if we are wise enough, and honest enough, and humble enough, we will feel the need sometimes to pause, and reflect, and question, and re-consider. And people of faith should certainly be ready to do that, for our faith must be is in a God who much bigger than our current understanding of him, and our trust must be in something bigger than our own beliefs, and our future must contain more than we have been able to plan or imagine. So to stop from time to time, to ask questions and to seek guidance, is certainly no bad if we need an example to follow Jesus certainly gives us that.

6 He was not ready to head back home and carry on as before. He needed the extra time in the Temple, and he took it. There will be times for all of us when life seems to be moving on too fast, and we feel the need to pause and wonder and reconsider a few things, and we would be foolish to ignore that suppose it is a bit like when you are travelling to visit someone you haven t seen for a while, and you are not quite sure where their house is. You might start off pretty confidently you think know where you re going. But then you discover that a road is blocked and you have to go another way and suddenly you find yourself in streets that you just don t recognise, and you re not sure which way to turn for the best.

7 You could carry on going round in circles and hope you get back on the right road eventually, getting more and more agitated in the process. Or you could stop and go into a caf . A cup of coffee, a slice of chocolate cake, some friendly chat with the locals and quick look at the map, and you re off again, refreshed and ready for the next know that someone will tell me it is simpler just to buy a GPS, but that rather spoils the illustration. The point is that there are times on the journey through life when we will find ourselves a bit lost and uncertain, facing things we have never faced before. And while we can t exactly stop the world and hope that life will wait until we are ready to deal with it, we will certainly benefit if we can take a break, if we can find space to gather our thoughts, if we can listen some people who have been that way before,and then set off again, refreshed, and better equipped to carry is of course, what we do every Sunday.

8 That is part of what worship is for. That is part of what prayer is for. That is what good religion has to offer. It is the practice of pausing, and remembering what is important, and recognising where we might have gone wrong, and being reminded of the right way, drawing on sources of wisdom which have been tried and tested over many centuries of practice of pausing. That is the pattern which we see in the life of Jesus. He took part in the ritual worship in Synagogues, where he would have heard the scriptures being read regularly enough for them to become part of his instinctive understanding of life. As well as that he seems to have had a practice of regularly going off to pray alone, building a personal connection with the one he called father which sustained and strengthened him.

9 And at key moments, at the main turning points in his life, rather than rushing on because he had so much to do, he stopped and he questioned and he sought pattern may have started when he was 12, but it continues with him withdrawing into the wilderness to fast for a month after his baptism. And it continues with him going off to pray alone in the garden of Gethsemane when he faced death. If Jesus needed that pattern to cope with life, we would be arrogant indeed to imagine that we can cope without practice of pausing, not only at difficult moments, but actually weaving that practice into our normal pattern of living, and of using Church and regular worship as the best way to do that, is that pattern of living that we get from Jesus.

10 And it is still the pattern of living which the Church offers to the if I seem to be saying that the Church can be like a roadside caf , you will understand that I am not just talking about the quality of our coffee. I mean that it is a place where weary travellers can find ancient wisdom and new strength. A place where we can ask questions together and find answers together. A place where even 12 year old travellers who can t always do as they re told, and who sometimes upset their parents, and who keep asking awkward questions, can be welcomed and valued and appreciated and I want to encourage you, to use the resources which our faith offersto help and to guide you in the key moments of your life.